


if you live by the rules of its over

by cosmicbees



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Also big mentions of Shiro/[MAN], Angst, Canon Compliant, M/M, Other, Pining Keith (Voltron), Post-Canon, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-26
Updated: 2019-02-26
Packaged: 2019-11-05 22:20:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,147
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17927453
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cosmicbees/pseuds/cosmicbees
Summary: there are unlimited realities in the universe.in which keith tears apart time and space to find a shiro to confess to.It takes nearly a year for Keith to find what he’s looking for.A tiny sliver of silvery white light, cut stark against the darkness of space. Keith has felt the pull of raw quintessence before, the harsh tug at the base of his gut, but this is different. Frigid cold and warm all at once, it overtakes him as he gets closer to the irregularity. He blinks, and for that split second, something flashes across his eyelids--a memory, perhaps.





	if you live by the rules of its over

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this in the aftermath of s8, months ago. im preemptively sorry 
> 
> title from ['white flag' by dido](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-fWDrZSiZs)
> 
>  
> 
> also, a word of caution: there is a mention of vomiting in this chapter, so if descriptions of that could be triggering to you in any way, please be cautious.

Losing Shiro isn’t what Keith would have expected. He has mourned loss, yes, a thousand times over, but never like  _ this _ . 

The loss of his father had wounded him in a way that took far longer to heal than Keith would have cared to admit. It still festers, in some ways, but it’s stitched up now, from time mostly, but from the salve of self-determination, too. 

Losing Allura to something bigger than himself, bigger than the universe, still aches so deeply in his chest that he sometimes wonders if he were just able to stop breathing, that the pain might leave him. Perhaps then he would know peace in death. 

Shiro’s disappearance time, and time, and time again hadn’t even hurt like this. At least then, Shiro was gone. Dead, even. 

But, to lose Shiro to love leaves Keith in tatters.

 

***

 

“He’s nice,” Shiro reaches out to settle a heavy hand on Keith’s shoulder, His grip is firm and intoxicatingly warm, and Keith wants nothing more than to lean his head over to press his cheek against Shiro’s knuckles. “I think you’ll like him.” 

Keith hums, eyes fixed to a point just over Shiro’s head.  _ It’s just one date _ , he reminds himself.

One date turns into one more. One more turns into many, and only then does Keith bother to learn his name. 

_ Curtis _ . 

The minute the word falls from Shiro’s lips, Keith realizes, somewhere in the back of his skull, that this is it. Curtis is it, and Curtis is all there will ever be again. He’s tall, taller than Shiro if only by a hair, with deep skin, and bright blue eyes that seem to be perpetually stuck to Shiro’s profile. The sight of the two of them pressed thigh to thigh in a sticky vinyl booth across from Keith, hands woven together and swapping shy smiles, curdles the milkshake in Keith’s stomach so quickly that he has to excuse himself from the table. 

“I’m sorry,” Keith’s smile is stiff and the words feel weak against the bile rising sticky and painful in the back of his throat, “I’ll be back in a minute.” 

Keith kneels on the filthy floor of the men’s restroom in the diner he and Shiro have frequented since Keith was hardly fifteen, just to empty the contents of his stomach into the toilet. The shame he feels in the act is nothing compared to the shame he feels knowing that seeing Shiro so happy brought him to his knees. 

He scrapes himself, and the last shreds of his dignity, up from the checkered tile. Even the cold water he presses to his face doesn’t bring back the color he’s lost to dry-heaving, and he scrubs the tear tracks away with an unwarranted ferocity. 

By the time he makes it back to the table, Keith’s cheeks are pink again, rubbed raw by angry hands and rough paper towels, and Shiro’s face is buried into Curtis’s shoulder while he shakes with laughter. Keith nods numbly when Curtis asks him if he’s feeling okay, and shoves a cold french fry into his mouth, willing the nausea to subside when Shiro’s eyes don’t leave Curtis for the rest of the meal. 

 

***

 

Shiro’s wedding marks the breaking point for Keith, who guides Shiro through the months leading up to it, relegated to the role of Best Man. Keith aches for the title of ‘best’ to mean something more than it does, knowing that despite being Shiro’s right hand in battle, and in life, that second best is as good as he’ll get. 

On the day of the ceremony, Keith tugs the satin bowtie from Shiro’s hands, “you’re shaking,” he murmurs, entwining his fingers with Shiro’s to steady them. He hardly has time to savor the rough drag of Shiro’s palm against his own before Shiro squeezes his hand in response, just a bit too tight.

“I’m nervous,” Shiro admits, head hanging low, “what if I’m making a mistake?” 

Keith grits his teeth, wants to tell Shiro that he is, but he gnaws on the inside of his cheek for a moment instead, pulling his grip from Shiro’s. “Do you feel like you’re making a mistake?” he asks, reaching up to slip the satin around Shiro’s neck. 

Shiro pauses briefly, while Keith tightens the piece of fabric, fingers deftly working it into a bow, “no. I don’t, but what if Curtis-” 

“Shut up, Shiro.” Keith’s response is brusque, but he settles warm palms on Shiro’s shoulder’s, meeting his eyes in a defiant gaze, “he wouldn’t have asked you to marry him if he didn’t want to marry you. You wouldn’t have said yes if you didn’t want this, too.” 

Shiro nods, blinking back the wetness gathering in the corners of his eyes, and Keith reaches up to thumb at the tears while Shiro murmurs a quiet “thank you.” 

“Shiro, do me a favor?” Keith waits only a moment before standing up on his tiptoes to press his lips to Shiro’s forehead. Shiro chokes out a watery little laugh at the contact, muttering something that Keith can’t make out. “Can you let yourself be happy for once?” 

An affirmation of “yes, I will,” for Keith, and, later, an “I do,” for Curtis, and Keith watches his entire world fall to pieces around him. He never even got to tell Shiro--the real Shiro--that he loved him. 

He boards the first shuttle off-world after the reception, bound for New Altea.

 

***

 

“Keith,” Coran’s words are quiet, “you shouldn’t do this.” 

He squeezes his eyes shut instead, tight against the light filtering in through the high windows of the library, and huffs out a bitter little laugh. “You don’t even know what I’m doing.” 

“You called me in the middle of the night to ask me to pull every piece of information about interdimensional travel,” Coran speaks as though handling a wounded animal, and Keith realizes that he’s rarely ever heard so much caution in the other man’s voice, “you shouldn’t do whatever you’re planning.”

“I’ll be fine, Coran.” Keith opens his eyes, gaze cast towards the ceiling, “I can fix this.”

 

***

 

It takes nearly a year for Keith to find what he’s looking for. 

A tiny sliver of silvery white light, cut stark against the darkness of space. Keith has felt the pull of raw quintessence before, the harsh tug at the base of his gut, but this is different. Frigid cold and warm all at once, it overtakes him as he gets closer to the irregularity. He blinks, and for that split second, something flashes across his eyelids--a memory, perhaps. 

But it’s too vivid to be a memory, with no hazy vignette of time lining the edges. It reminds Keith of the visions he had while traveling through the quantum abyss, and this, he realizes, is as close to a good sign as he will get. 

**Author's Note:**

> i am available mostly on [twitter](https://twitter.com/sheithinlove) and sometimes on [tumblr](http://patienceyieldslove.tumblr.com/)


End file.
